Current GW2 Players - Do you think this game has longevity?

If you do not play GW2, please do not bother responding, this thread is for people who actually enjoy and play GW2.

I wanted to throw out the question of whether the CURRENT players think this game has longevity for them - PvE wise, WvW wise and in sPvP.

Personally I'm levelling my third character to 80 - a mesmer this time around. I'm having as much of a blast doing it as my first 2 characters, warrior and guardian. I tried, but did not enjoy playing elementalist. PvE wise, I don't think it has longevity for me - there is a lack of "real reward" after 80 and obtaining exotics, which is not a large task. I have 100% completion on one character and it's pretty unlikely I will go through that again on a 2nd. Legendary doesn't count as "a carrot" because it's a MASSIVE time investment for a small reward. It's a catch-22 though, because this is one of the things that really attracted me to GW2 (no grinding at 80).

However, I think this game will entertain me for a long time to come because of the PvP, I think it has a lot of depth and I haven't even scratched the surface of what I want to learn. I play for about 6 hours a night and I usually log off reluctantly already thinking about what I'm going to do in it the next day/week/month.

So I say: Yes, it has longevity for me. I can see myself playing this game for a long time, especially with the regular content updates.

For me it didn't catch up that much, I've loved the time i've gotten with the game, but so far i haven't touched it in like 2 weeks, but stil, it totally paid off.
Why did i stop playing? PvE content, I tend to prefer PvE content quite a lot in my mmo's, the way PvE is structured in GW2 hasn't atracted me all that much, maybe is due to the "clasic raiding model" I've been living.

On the pvp departure this game for me is quite huge, sadly there are a lot of skills i have to learn in order to start playing the pvp with some knowledge of what i'll be doing, and from that point forth start learning mechanics and possible counters, kind of a lot of labor that i don't want to get through once again on another game, that's not a design issue but a personal one sadly. The good side is that same point, there is so much to get on each role/profession that the game is somewhat deep in that sense, I hope sometime soon we'll start seeing some metagaming.

Does it have longevity? Yes. But only if you don't burn yourself out on it first.

Realistically, Guild Wars 2, much like its predecessor, isn't built to withstand 40+ hours a week, every week, that current MMO players are looking to put into it. It's not. And when you start to pour that much in, week after week, you burn yourself out, you get tired of it, and look for something new.

It was never meant to replace your current favorite game of choice, and is an excellent game to play alongside something else. I've personally been spending a lot of my time lately playing Donkey Kong Country Returns (11/10, solid recommendations) and whatever's on my 3DS or PSP (can't afford a Vita, shoot me), thus when I log into Guild Wars 2 it's because it's something I want to do. Not something I push myself to do.

And because I take that step of wanting to, I enjoy the content I'm faced with, be it WvW (small squad or striker/scout, refuse to zerg) based PvP, the standardized PvP, or whatever zones I feel like playing through in PvE. And the updates? The updates keep it fresh. And I like that.

So if you ask me? Yes, this game has longevity, as long as you take the time to enjoy it. You can't microwave a frozen roast beef, trying to devour as much of it as fast as you can, and expect it to actually be edible, let alone enjoyable.

we will have to wait and see how the content updates go. While I'm haveing as much fun now as I did at launch withen my sadly narrowed play time window I suspect that for a majority of folks its going to take new content to keep people playing.

Halloween was fairly impressive. There was quite a bit of content for an event that only runs for 1 week a year and we have no idea yet how much of it will be reused in the future. That was a good chunk of content only 2 months after launch and we've got a whole new zone and a one off world event less than a month after that. There will likely be an event similar in scope to halloween a month later as their wintersday holiday rolls around. If they can keep up a pace like that for releasing new content as well as releasing boxed expansions on a regular basis I'd say it bodes well for longevity.

The major issue with new MMO releases is relitive lack of content. No mater how much content a game launches with it is always compaired to the behemoth that is WoW and its 8 years of added content. While its not a fair comparison its sadly a fact of life that it happens. To keep folks paying attention the devs need to keep giveing the player base shots of quality content on a regular basis. Even if the players consume it faster than its produced a regular schedule can at least keep them comeing back every couple weeks. To date only Rift has done a particularly good job at this. Even WoW is glacialy slow on mid expansion content and its obvious looking at guild activity where there is a spike around patches that tapers off after a month or two as folks vanish till the next patch. I still think its more inertia than anything else that keeps wow going strong while its competitors often taper off to more modestly sized playerbases.

GW2 seems intent on seting a pace of content updates that rivals what rift was doing. In my mind that bodes well for keeping players coming back on a regular basis. The fact that you dont have to resub to try out the new content helps as well. I've got accounts for a dozen MMO's that still get updates but I havent checked in years because I didnt want to pay another 15 bucks that month and I've been gone so long I'd have to relearn the game from scratch. A few weeks on alternating with a few weeks off is more likely to keep people comeing back and GW2's structure caters to that.

A point that everyone makes and it's quite interesting, the game has longevity BUT it doesn't obligate you to play it in order to keep somewhat "competitive" or linked to the game itself, which at difference from our traditional mmo's, a patch or two and you'll be way behind from your friends, maybe in level, gears or anything, and you will have to do that stuff you might like/dislike in order to get there, making the game more "longevous" (i beleive it's the right word, someone please correct me if i'm wrong).

I've played a LOT of mmo-RPG's, and well, the biggest example I can give about the "ball and chain" is Ragnarok Online, if you wanted to stay in a competitive guild, winning WoE and getting MvP's you HAD to have a timer and an extremely high ammount of time on your hands just to farm items to enjoy the war (which wasn't too enjoyable at the ending taking into account you had to spent a lot of your time in just consuming potions... damn you condensed potions, every friday night farming for the massive WoE2.0 :c)

Does it have longevity? Yes. But only if you don't burn yourself out on it first.

Realistically, Guild Wars 2, much like its predecessor, isn't built to withstand 40+ hours a week, every week, that current MMO players are looking to put into it. It's not. And when you start to pour that much in, week after week, you burn yourself out, you get tired of it, and look for something new.

It was never meant to replace your current favorite game of choice, and is an excellent game to play alongside something else.

All of this. /All/

I haven't been playing much GW2 myself. Combination of real life & other games coming out. I just can't play 6 games at once. But I am perfectly okay with this situation. Esp. as a new raid tier will hit us on Tuesday. Probably won't play anything but the new Rift expansion until I puke planarite.

That's when I'll likely want a change of pace, as usual- when I am sick of raiding or grinding maps. GW1 provided that respite for years, and still does. The sequel is a finely made game. Shall enjoy at my own pace for years to come most likely.

Yes. There is. There is so much I want to do in this game its insane just how much. I'm done about 40%, i have only 3g in total saved up, only leveled 2 characters, and still have interest in playing this game with my buds. Not to mention there is no subscription fee. I seriously see little point for anyone to quit this (unless they just don't like it).

And as [Kelesti] said, playing this game alongside another game isn't a bad choice. I am playing this along with games like Darksiders/Eco collection and I still have to finish Batman Arkham City (though these games I barely play now).

Last edited by Kelesti; 2012-11-09 at 05:14 AM.

I am KickButtMario. I kick butt because I am Mario. The coolest, longest, living, protagonist out there in the video game industry.

TL;DR you just described every game ever created. Any game will last longer the more you ration play time. Well any game that isnt something like chess where the "Content" is based solely off your opponents reactions to your actions.

A lot of us got bored of it very quickly. Personally I didn't like the combat system and so couldn't really enjoy PVE or PVP. The puzzles were ok, but that's not going to hold my attention and even when you solve some of them, the chests were empty like the organ one I did in one of the zones.

TL;DR you just described every game ever created. Any game will last longer the more you ration play time. Well any game that isnt something like chess where the "Content" is based solely off your opponents reactions to your actions.

That really depends on how the game is designed, WoW has done an amazing job of keeping people playing but it has a vested interest in doing so, GW2 is specifically not designed around that philosophy therefore compared with most sub MMOs it won't have longevity, but it is still a grinding game with a bunch of collecting schemes so I would expect people to play this for longer than your average game.

I think so. Like Kelesti said, you play it alongside something else. Since I bounce around between games quite often, GW2 is just about a perfect fit for me, just like GW1 before it. I've got 2 active alts, plus a L80. I'm also in the middle of a few other games (BGT, JA2, TL2, XCOM and just picked up Towns). If this was any of the other themeparks (WoW, Rift, TERA, SWTOR, etc), I'd slowly start falling behind while feeling like I'm not getting my moneys worth. With GW2, I can step away for a week or two and not feel bad. I skipped the whole halloween event, then played a bunch on my Engineer this past weekend and had a blast.

I've been playing pretty regularly and the pvp alone is enough to make me never get bored. Hell I still play CoD4, log in to GW1 to do VQ or SC once a week, play Diablo 2, all of my favorite games I never really stop playing. GW2 is definitely one of them, I love tpvp and can't WAIT for custom servers. That is going to liven the pvp community so much, and ANet planning to add regular content updates for free like the one this month on the 15. Add expansions to the mix and the fact that they said they want to keep adding a ton of permanent features with every holiday etc. yes this game has a ton of longevity.

It still has a ton of polishing to do, I give it 4 months or so before we see what GW2 is truly made of. After all, we still don't even have the legendary GvG.

I have mentioned this in a few threads...I believe arena net knows the key things its audience is asking for...The ball is in their court...it all depends on if / when they make some changes etc. Was it worth it? Yes definitely 60 bucks for 500+ hours...and I have thoroughly enjoyed thats it only just now that I'm starting to get a little bored. I can always come back to it without some major life altering commitment having to be made. I think it does have longevity but it will become more apparent in what I believe will be about 4 months around the 6 months mark into its life.

i think so yes. the best part about this game is that i dont feel obligated to log in every day and go make my "rounds"

since the gear treadmill isnt nearly as steep as other mmos i can take comfort in knowing that if i dont get around to logging in for several weeks i can come back knowing that i havent left myself at any realy disadvantage.

between this, LoL and swtor im going to have a nice fall/winter game schedule to play during cold and nasty days

tbh it only took me a week or two to get bored to death of it i got a char to 80 then kinda lost interest the whole being downleveled for lower level areas or dungeons seemed like a great idea but tbh its a horrible idea and i just wish i couldve stayed my level rather than get owned by everything when all i want to do is get the world exploration thing done which at 78% ive given up on plus any new characters i make i just about having to get the map completions done again which just depresses me...

That really depends on how the game is designed, WoW has done an amazing job of keeping people playing but it has a vested interest in doing so, GW2 is specifically not designed around that philosophy therefore compared with most sub MMOs it won't have longevity, but it is still a grinding game with a bunch of collecting schemes so I would expect people to play this for longer than your average game.

True enough, design maters. Blizzard has made it an artform in how it strings along its players with the least amount of content they can get away with for the longest time. Cant fault em for min maxing their bottom line in that respect. However even wow you can easily burn out if you play it too much. The difference is you feel really bad about takeing time off because its so easy to fall off that gear treadmill if you loose pace. Basicly their design is to force you to push through the burnout while GW2 seems to want us to take breaks as needed but come back often because they keep throwing content at us. Different approaches to the same end.